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You Built, They Came, Now What?

Those of you who know me well, know that “patient” is not normally an adjective used when describing my demeanor. As a matter of fact, extremely impatient is probably more like it. Having worked in a sales-driven culture my entire career I prefer to be constantly moving from one meeting to the next, internal and external all day long. Commuting and after work hours are used for following up and reporting back to management what I have been up to and what I plan to do next.

I would consider myself to be a very effective sales representative/sales manager, but like many high energy reps, I am not always easy to manage. Intuitively, I know that my organization has spent good money on an awesome platform like Salesforce.com. I know how valuable it is for management to understand why I won or lost an opportunity. How can I expect marketing to follow up with customers or prospects if I have not entered their title or email address? If I do not record meeting notes in the proper Salesforce record, I might find my client services team coming to a call asking a client to review their goals and objectives – again.

Last quarter, we deployed an internal instance of Nitro for Salesforce which is Bunchball’s application that adds game mechanics into the Salesforce.com environment. I have been at Bunchball for 3 years and have been selling our Nitro platform primarily to companies looking to motivate consumers to consume/create and share content among other things. I have visited those environments and enjoyed them but they were not part of my daily routine. When, all of a sudden, I was presented a road map of the things I needed to do in Salesforce.com to earn “Bazingas,” I was like a man possessed. Of course, entering leads and closing opportunities is a standard for any sales person. But now, we were awarded points/badges for providing feedback in the win/loss detail area of an opportunity. We were awarded points/badges for filling in address information fully. Points/badges for updating meeting results in Salesforce.com .

For a brief moment, my defenses rose, feeling like I was giving “the man” (corporate America) what they asked for - not my usual style. Then, it hit me how much more pleasant it is when your manger uses carrots instead of sticks. And more importantly, when the quarter was said and done, I was able to trade my Bazingas in for gift cards which I will be using this weekend at the shore.

We all know that incentives drive behavior. Technology has enabled a never-before-seen ability to collaborate within small companies and global enterprises alike. Salesforce.com, Jive, IBM Connections and others have altered the workplace in very positive ways. The clients and prospects I am working with feel that these investments have been worthwhile even as they work on ways to improve user adoption and create sustainable engagement.

I was watching Field of Dreams with my 12-year-old son the other day and love the now-classic scene where we hear a phantom voice say “if you build it, they will come.” So, Kevin Costner builds the baseball field and, sure enough, the players came. What if they did not have uniforms, bats and balls? It all would all have been for naught. This great field would have been used for a picnic, Kevin Costner would not have been able to charge people to watch them play and he would have gone bankrupt.

In the Enterprise, YOU have built it and the EMPLOYEES have come. Contextually relevant digital loyalty and motivation programs are the next step in the evolution chain towards sustainable engagement.

Give us a ring and we can show you how to add these carrots into your collaboration platform……..

As the market leader and innovator in gamification, Bunchball’s gamification solutions have motivated more than 125 million users to complete more than 20 billion actions on behalf of over 300 customers.